Cogs can think.

I usually don’t blog about sports, because I’ll turn into one big chauvinistic annoying man who hates everyone who isn’t Dutch (esp. Americans). That’s why I haven’t blogged yet about the speedskating in Torino at the Olympics.

Speedskating is a Dutch sport. Speedskating in general is in every Dutchie’s blood and bones. In my country, everybody can iceskate. As soon as temperatures drop below zero, the entire nation gets ‘ice-fever’. We have a word that no other languages has: ‘ice-fun’ (literally translated). I cannot explain the feeling we Dutch have when we’re on the ice, with the kids from the neighbourhood, parents watching, teens going way too fast, people falling, people learning how to skate behind chairs, ‘koek en zopie’. You don’t understand when you’re not Dutch. To illustrate this point, take the Elf Steden Tocht. This is an iceskating tour along the eleven cities of the province of Friesland. This is a tour of, I’m not kidding, 200 kilometres. The event can rarely be held due to our easy winters.

How deep does this go? Deep. Very deep. Hendrick Avercamp, Dutch painter from the 16th century, painted the following.

Anyway, there was a big deception last Thursday when the Dutch speedskating team fell on the new Olympic speedskating event ‘Team Chase’. We Dutch would’ve taken the gold– there is no doubt about that in the speedskating scene. But even for that we Dutch have a saying– ‘falling is part of skating’. Ireen Wust won gold on the women’s 3000 metres, Groenewold got silver. Kramer took silver on the men’s 5000 metres.

But today, on the men’s 1000 metres, Wennemars took the bronze medal. And I want to congratulate him with it, because he has come a long way in the last 4 weeks. He hit rock bottom 4 weeks ago in Deventer, got ‘kicked out’ of his team by coach Jack Orie, just two weeks before the start of the Games. He joined the team of coach Gerard Kemkes, and now he has won the bronze medal. I bow deep to Erben.

Very deep.